Small Scale DABOfcom operated a SmallScale DAB Trial in Brighton, UK
between September 2012 and January 2013. This got our attention as our
attempts to join the then proposed new Multiplex to cover
Gloucestershire, failed due to the model not being appropriate for our
business (high costs and the large coverage area). We visited Ofcom's
Radio Monitoring Station in Baldock in November 2014 and were very
impressed with what their Engineering Team had achieved with Software
Defined Radio (SDR). We believed this was something Ringtone.net Ltd
could operate due to the expertise we have built over the past decade in
delivery large technical programmes of work. We responded to the
consultation that Ofcom produced (here)
and started to plan how we could be involved.

We purchased test
equipment (Hack RFs, low powered PCs, Dell Servers etc) and became involved
with the Open Digital Radio mmbTools forum and started to get involved.
In March 2015 we produced our first 'static file" ETI Ensemble and
transmitted it in a Faraday Cage to a radio receiver (under
Suppressed Radiation Conditions). It wasn't long before we had a
full end to end DAB transmission chain in place with 3 'Programmes' (Radio
Stations) included in the Mux (Multiplex). The Faraday Cage was a
bit cumbersome to work with, so we have moved to using a direct very low
power connection between our SDR peripheral and a software based DAB
receiver running on a PC.

We did apply to become
a Small Scale DAB Trial Licence holder however our application
wasn't successful.

We already have a working DAB Transmission Chain under supressed
Radiation Conditions to comply, with UK Legislation. Watch our short
videos:

Our working Testbed end to end DAB transmission chain. (please choose 1080p)